Tag Archives: Brown Hare

My Patch – March 2019

Posted on by

March 6th – This evening I spotted a moth on the kitchen window just as I was about to go home.  I stepped outside to have a closer look, once the light had come on I realised there were about 6 moths flying around and 9 on the window.  I quickly went to grab my camera to get a picture as I had no idea what type it was.  I found something in my insect book that looked similar; a common Quaker so I went online to see if I could find more images to clarify.  It wasn’t the right moth but there were also images of a small Quaker which I was 99% sure it was.  I posted my image on Twitter and @MothIDUK kindly confirmed my ID was correct.

Small Quaker generally live in deciduous woodland and are on the wing from March to April.  They feed on sallow blossom, which explains why there were so many in the garden – the goat willow is currently covered in catkins with their green/yellow pollen 🙂  The larvae feed in early summer on deciduous trees including willow so I will be looking closely at the tree later in the year to see if we have any larvae.  

March 11th – When I got to the field this morning I was told there were brown hares in the field but I would need to look out of one of the upstairs windows to see them.  One was led down and the other ran across the field as I was watching them.  I love seeing the hares as they are so secretive it is very special to see them.  

March 13th – there were 9 fallow deer on the far side of the field tonight. 

March 14th – there were 25 fallow deer in the middle of the field tonight.  I do worry about them as the white ones really do make the herd stand out! 

March 20th – there was a pheasant in the garden under the bird feeder! I have a feeling he may become a regular visitor! 

March 21st – tonight I went out to listen for tawny’s but again there were none.  Whilst I was listening I was also looking; for cellar slugs.  The RHS is looking for people to submit their sightings of yellow cellar and green cellar slugs to their iRecord recording page.  They are looking to find out which garden features may influence where the slugs are located.  I found 18 green cellar slugs but no yellow.  The yellow cellar slugs are in decline so any sightings are really important.  I’m going to try and complete a search once a month, the slugs are nocturnal so make you have a fully charged torch before heading out for this survey! 

I heard a noise and thought it could be a fox over the other side of the fence, stepping up onto the raised bed a bat flew over my head and was illuminated by my torch light 🙂 I discovered the noise I thought I heard, it was in fact in the garden, I think there is a hedgehog rustling around in the leaves.  I will have to put the trail camera out next week to find out for sure.  

March 22nd – the pheasant was back again this morning; I managed to get a very bad photo of him on my phone.   

March 25th – I wanted to walk around the field this evening as it was such a lovely evening, however the farmer was fertilizing! I walked along the track towards the copse.  I wanted to see if any flowers were growing.  I found one lesser celandine and some leaves that indicated that there are others that may have already flowered.  There are some cuckoo-pint leaves and some leafy sections although at present I’m not sure what plants they are.  There will be lots common nettles again this year which will benefit the insects.  I don’t believe the copse is managed in anyway and I can only assume that the lack of varying vegetation is due to the deer who probably eat it.  There are tiny saplings growing, I’m not sure which trees they are so I need to have a closer look.     

March 27th – this morning the blue and great tits were not on the feeders but looking around the shed roof and the leaves of the newly sprouting roses for more natural food sources.  There is now a pile of twigs underneath the jackdaws regular nest site so I can only assume they are refurbishing their nest, especially seeing there is a twig sticking out of the entrance hole – its looks like they have got it well and truly stuck! The twigs that have fallen on the garden floor from the goat willow have been left for them to use if they wish. 

Tonight we put up two new nest boxes in the field near the house.  I am hoping we have some sparrows nest in them, but I would be happy with anyone using them to be honest.  I may have to spend some time sat in the field just watching the boxes to see if there is any activity. 

I put the trail camera out facing the wren/robin box on the side of the house, it was triggered, although I only had footage of the box with nobody entering or leaving it!  I’m guessing the trail camera won’t be much help at that nest!  

My Patch – February 2019

Posted on by

February 1st – I managed to get to work in all the snow and at lunch they decided to send everyone home.  Of course I didn’t go home I went straight to the patch – I wasn’t going to miss using ‘free time’ to check out what’s going on even if it was snowing!  I headed out and over by the copse found deer tracks and found a robin in the brambles.  I really liked the monotone colour of the field with the snow falling the carrion crow added to the artistic feel.  There were not that many birds on the ground though I did hear a buzzard and overhead 8 lapwing, a black-headed gull and a cormorant all flew over while I was out.  I was looking at the trees when a small movement caught my eye, a wren was at the base of tree trunk looking for food in the little bits of ground there where not covered in snow.   

Once back at the house I sat and watched the birds on the feeders: 2 blue tits, 1 great tit, 5 starlings, 1 robin and one bird that made me look twice – a reed bunting!  I have never seen one in the field or the garden before so it took me a while to recognise it as I just didn’t expect to see one.     

February 2nd – Today was a beautifully sunny day.  I had to go out in the field as we don’t get many days like this a year!  The only footprints in the field were mine, fallow deer, fox, brown hare and rabbit. No other humans had been there.  It’s good to know the creatures of the field don’t get a lot of disturbance.  I know people walk down by the river as there are sometimes dog walkers but generally they only seem to be there at weekends. When I reached the copse I could hear a redwing calling, I finally located it at the top of the trees in the hedgerow just opposite.  

I walked along my normal route down the side of the copse what I hasn’t notice when i walked across the field was the fallow deer led down along the side of the trees, they were really well camouflaged against the brown of the tree trunks.  I guess I shouldn’t have been surprised to find them there as they were in the same location where I had noticed the snow had been disturbed yesterday.  

I didn’t want to disturb them so I walked in the next field over on the other side of the copse.  The sun shining through the trees looked really pretty.  It was hard work walking down to the river as the snow seemed to be deep on this side of the trees, in some places it was half way up my calves!  

As I reached the river I noticed three cormorants sat in one of the trees further downstream.  I wouldn’t have normally seen them as I wasn’t technically in my patch.  I have seen the odd one fly overhead so its nice to know there is more than one passing through.  There were lots of hoof prints down by the river, the deer must use the copse to get to the river to drink.  It is actually really useful to go out in the snow when no other humans have been about as the animal tracks have given me a much better idea of how they use the features of the field.  

I haven’t really got to grips with the river yet and this summer I would like to spend some more time there (though I might need to tame some of the vegetation so I can actually see the river!).  I heard a moorhen, saw a blue tit on one of the trees, two pairs of mallard swam by and four long-tailed tit worked their way along the bank from tree to tree.  There are large gaps between each tree so maybe there needs to be a couple of extras added for them.  I felt like a rabbit at one point as shadows moving along the ground caught my eye, thankfully in my case it didn’t mean danger just two grey heron flying over.

I decided to walk all the way around the field so not to disturb the deer on my walk back to the car.  It looks as though they generally only venture to the copse, the river and the ‘island’ which I believe was a meander in the river which had been altered to straighten the river once more.  I do however think this could also be the reason the river bank is eroding and the trees are leaning in the river as they loose their stable ground.  According to the land owner the river is much wider now than it was when he was a child.  

As I walked along the far edge I noticed fox prints, there were more towards the barn and I think it may have caught something as the snow was all scuffed up but there were not any signs of what it might have caught.  It looks like it could have been hiding in the hedge and pounced out.  I noticed a bird box on one of the trees which I haven’t seen before, they have cleared the ditch so I guess that’s why it’s visible now.  I wanted to check to see if had been used but I don’t know who has put it there and didn’t want to interfere.  One of the trees was old enough, to be large enough, for me to stand against its trunk, I liked the shadow the sun was casting of it on the snow.  

I had reached the barn but had to be conscious of the deer that were still relaxing on the other side of the field.  I didn’t want to spook them so moved slowly and stopped regularly to check on them and take more photos 🙂 

February 14th – 20:25 no owls heard – none heard all week

February 17th – The swans have returned 🙂 There were three in the field down by the river. I wonder if they will stay; there were numerous feeding on the crop shoots last year. 

This evening I cleaned out all of the nest boxes ready for this season.  I know last year a great tit started to build a nest in the starling box, what I hadn’t realised was it made a full nest; I don’t think it raised any young, though now I’m not sure and wonder if I missed the signs.  The sparrow terrace had a nest too!  Last year there were no signs of nesting in it at all and I was expecting to have to relocate it this year.  Seeing there has been some success all the boxes were put back in the same locations.  Fingers crossed for more nests this year…

February 22nd  – I spent the day in the garden cutting back the hawthorn hedge.  The birds were not happy with me; a) because I was in the garden and they didn’t want to go to the bird feeder on the left side (their favourite feeder) and b) I was cutting down their favourite place to sit before they dart onto the feeder!  I have promised them that once the fence has been jet washed and painted I will make sure there are some shrubs in pots put next to the feeder that they can use as additional cover.  The great spotted woodpecker kept landing in the goat willow tree, then I noticed another land close by, they seemed to have a disagreement and one flew off.  If I sat quietly on the garden bench, one would come down and feed on the feeders a few meters away.  Later on I heard drumming in the distance.  I spotted my first 7-spot ladybird on one of the plants and a bumblebee was buzzing around but I didn’t manage to locate it to find out what it was.  

It does worry me that the insects are out already, that its going to be warm all weekend and it could possibly get cold again.  What worries me more is the majority of people don’t see this as worrying.  Colleagues at work were talking about how nice the weekend was going to be and that soon they will be able to get the BBQ’s out etc, I mentioned the insects and they sort of went quiet (I often feel like the odd girl in the corner that doesn’t talk about normal things!).  A couple of people engage with talking about their gardens and planting some flowers for the insects – a couple is better than none.

I know there is a lot more in the news about the issues we face but I’m not sure people really see what’s going on around them or how everything interacts – I guess they just aren’t interested.  I managed to convince my office to be more aware about crisp packets; to collect all their empty packets so they can be sent off for recycling.  I was known as the ‘girl collecting crisp packets’ for a while after my office manager agreed I could have a box behind my desk for them, but now people from other departments sometime drop off used packets too!  In my mind any packet collected is better than it ending up in landfill.  I’m just not sure how we convince everyone to care about it!  I think they have to see the effects with their own eyes to understand how it actually effects them.   

February 25th – 19:55 no owls – none heard all week

February 27th – there were 19 fallow deer in the field at sunset.  The long-tailed tits wanted to get to the fat balls to feed, they weren’t happy I was stood in the way watching the deer, they were shouting at me from the hazel tree, I moved so they could feed.  Two tree sparrows were following each other through the jasmine looking for bugs, they flew off together, I hope they find one of the nest boxes nearby, though last year some did nest in the roof space just above the jasmine so fingers crossed.  

The mute swans didn’t stayed longer than a couple of days, hopefully they will come back when the crop is more suitable for eating!

Snow Tracks

Posted on by

Although the recent snowfall was only a couple of weeks ago, to be honest it feels like a lifetime ago! I headed out on the Saturday morning to look for snow tracks.  I have a good idea what visits the field in the day and a fair idea of what wanders around after dark, but normally finding tracks other than roe deer is not easy.  The snow however made it much easier 🙂 

I had been told that the house next to the owner had been walking their dog through the field, so I needed to get there early so I didn’t have dog prints in the mix.  Luckily they hadn’t been out by the time I got there.  I did however have cat prints everywhere! They were quite easy to spot as the cat wandered out into the field so I could have a good look at his print!

Along the top edge of the field along with the cat! I found fox prints, it had been quite active during the night by the looks of it but I guess seeing I now know there are rabbits living along the hedgerow I can see why.  It had been looking into the rabbit hole and it did look as though there had been a chase or at least a rabbit running in an arch.  The rabbits had clearly marked their burrow entrances with urine! At least I now know for sure who the holes belong to!  The only other tracks I found were pheasant, which seem to be spending time in this part of the field.

Instead of heading around the field I headed out into the next field along, I knew the mute swans were there and wanted to check on them.  I also found roe deer, rabbit, brown hare, fox and badger prints 🙂 All the four legged mammals that I have seen in my patch. Its good to know that they were all okay out in the snowy conditions; well at least they were on the move 🙂 The snow began to thaw in the afternoon and I am sure they were all as glad about that as the rest of us! 

My Patch – January 2018

Posted on by

January at the field has not been overly successful.  I have only spent one day in the field and not had many encounters in the evenings and mornings because of the lack of light at the moment – though it is improving 🙂

January 10th – the mute swans are still in the field this morning there were 16 🙂

January 26th – I took the day off of work to spend some time at the field. I was lucky it was a sunny as the days either side were wet and gloomy.  I don’t ever see a lot walking along the top edge of the field, I think part of that fact is I have to look down a lot!   There are lots of holes/burrows in the ground, though the ones I have mentioned before seem to have collapsed as the ground has sunk though new holes have appeared! I’m sure they belong to rabbits, but I am yet to see a rabbit in the field!  I did have a quick glimpse of a robin and a blue tit that were in the hedgerow.  There are a lot of paw prints along the track I was walking, though I am 100% sure they belong to the cat!

Walking down the side of the copse was again the most productive part of my walk. The squirrel drey is still securely in the tree and as I was looking up a heard a nose and looking at the base of the tree a saw the whites of two large back paws bounding away, I had disturbed a hare that I think was sunbathing in the cover of the part of the hedgerow.  I hadn’t seen it, if I had it would have made a lovely photograph.  I was looking out across the field and saw a couple of lumps, I had a look through the binoculars thinking they would be clumps of mud, nope TWO HARES!!!! They were a fair way off in the field and didn’t seem at all bothered by me watching, they were grazing, cleaning etc  I was having problems photographing them, I was looking into the sun and there was a heat haze across the field – typical! I have never seen two hares together before and I was so surprised to see them. My attention was drawn away to the birds in the hedgerow, two robins that were hoping about having a slight territorial dispute and then to long-tailed tits in the top of the trees.  Walking down the lower part of the copse towards the river I again spooked the roe deer.  I hear them moving then normally see white bottoms bouncing off through the trees.  I need to locate myself in the copse at some point to photograph them.  My guess is there is normally two or three that run off. 

The river was full.  It had obviously burst its banks recently as a patch of the field was a large puddle.  I have never seen it that full before.  It did look pretty with the sun shining and the neutral tones of the fields behind. Two swans flew over and later a cormorant.  I heard a wren and a moorhen but didn’t see them.  The holes that I have seen in the bank previously were fully submerged so if they were homes to any creature they were 100% flooded out.  I was stood watching three goldfinch flitting between the trees, I turned round to find a hare metres from me.  I slowly lifted the camera to take a photo but it was gone as soon as I moved a muscle, I hadn’t expected to see one right behind me!  I estimate there were 3 to 4 hares in the field! As the river receded from its original flooded level it has dropped lots of plastic bottles along the rivers edge, I did think about trying to get them out, however, I was on my own and didn’t know how sturdy the bank was! I will take backup and fish them out next time I go.  If the water level doesn’t rise again they look like they will remain wedged in the tree line.

Rather than walking round the field I walked back up the copse. Two wren were in the hedgerow and a blackbird was keeping a few meters ahead of me all the way along, I’d get close it would fly a little further along and the continued.  I heard a bee, a queen buff-tailed bumble bee, it was buzzing along the side of the hedgerow.

As I reached the top of the field I heard a buzzard calling, when I turned I realised there were three circling over the copse riding the thermals.  Looking over the slight ridge to the left I could see the mute swans, 24 of them 🙂

As I wouldn’t be able to visit the patch over the Big Garden Birdwatch weekend I decided to do a count in the garden for my own records.

Great spotted woodpecker 1
Blue tit 7
Great tit 3
Goldfinch 10
Robin 2
Collard dove 3
Starling 14
House sparrow 6
Dunnock 1
Carrion crow 1
Chaffinch 2
Total no. of species 11
Total no. of birds 50
Weather Light cloud

January 29th – It is now noticeable that the evening are very slowly getting lighter.  I am looking forward to February as I’ve scanned the sunset calendar and by the time February 20th rolls round the sun will be setting at 5:31pm which means I will be able to get about half an hour of light to have a quick look around or start work on the garden at my patch – the land owner hasn’t done anything with the garden for a while due to personal reasons and I have been granted permission to ‘improve its wildlife friendliness! 🙂

January 30th – 31 mute swans were just on the other side of the fence, I didn’t have my camera so I took a quick photograph on my phone.  I haven’t seen them that far up the field before.  Hopefully they will be staying around for a little longer, I think they will still be there for as long as the crop is still sprouting.  

30 Days Wild 2017 – Days 11 – 15

Posted on by

Day 11 – June 11th was #2minutebeachclean and #2minutelitterpickup day run by beachclean.net. I headed out to a nearby road to do a bit of a tidy up, I took two bags with me thinking there wouldn’t be too much litter to pick up. I should have taken more! I cleaned a half mile stretch; there were cans, crisp packets, napkins, fast food boxes, bottles, car parts, sweet rappers etc I know some litter escapes from peoples bins etc but the majority of litter is dropped.  I wish everyone could understand the damage litter causes to nature.  How much effort does it really take to dispose of it responsibly.  I was talking to a friend about how much I had collected, when she was at school a fair few years ago they used to take it in turns go out on litter duty, I wonder if schools still do that today and if they do, does it make their students more aware of their surroundings?

Day 12 – was a wild day in a different sense. A day out at Longleat Safari Park! Seeing I have an extremely busy time at work coming up a couple of days holiday beforehand was required.  If I can get a day or two off then I always plan to do something a little different to keep my spirits up! It was a lovely sunny day at Longleat, warm but nothing like we have seen this week, which was a blessing as the A/C in my car is broken!  It was quite quiet too which meant starting the drive through at 10am was great as I could walk around the Wallaby’s and Lemur’s easily.  I decided to give the monkey’s a miss as I wanted to keep my car in one piece! Driving through and feeding the Red Deer was lovely, they are so friendly, although one did make me jump when she put her head in the window while I was looking the other way! They seem to understand ‘sorry I don’t have any food left!’.  I had a closer encounter than I was expecting with a Tiger, it wandered straight towards the car 🙂 Today was the first time I had ever seen the Hippo’s in the lake, on other visits they have been hiding in their field/mud hole.  

Day 13 – I had to take the car for its annual service.  I was planning to spend some time on the way back in Bath to try and see the Bath Peregrines.  I had meant to go and see them last year though I don’t go towards Bath very often.  The Hawk and Owl Trust installed a nesting box at St John’s Roman Catholic Church in 2005 where they have hatched young ever season since.   I had looked up on the website the location to view them from and headed to the opposite side of the river from Riverside Walk.  I had been watching them for a while when a crow caught my eye, it was carrying something but it wasn’t nesting material – it landed in a tree a few meters away, it was half a rat! A gentleman asked if I had seen a Peregrine, he worked for the Hawk and Owl Trust and was on the lookout for a fledgling that they had temporarily lost track of; they have been testing their flying capability and they are keeping an eye on them.  He was kind enough to tell me where one of the others was sitting, so I could get a closer view. It was lovely to watch a while, unfortunately I couldn’t stay longer as I had to head home.

Day 14 – Today was one of those ‘busy’ days.  Once I had left work I stopped by my patch for a short while and watched the sun setting.

Day 15 – I headed out for a walk/drive in the countryside.  I wanted to go to a Wildflower meadow to see how it was progressing this year, it is located amongst farmers fields so I have to drive as close as I can down one of the tracks and then walk the rest of the way.  I passed Goldfinches in a rape field feeding and then as I turned the corner towards the meadow a Badger ran across my path.  I must have startled it as it ran off very quickly which was such a shame as it would have been lovely to have watched from a far.  It was good to know it was there though, as a previous year I found what I thought was Badger latrines in a nearby field so hopefully they still have a sett nearby.  I will have to try and find it in the winter as I don’t think I would have much luck at the moment in the Maze fields!  The Meadow at the moment is predominantly grasses, I think it was later in the year that it flowered last year so I will have to keep checking on it.  I saw a bird fly over and although unsure of what it was, I think it was a Hobby.  On my route home I took a detour to the location I saw the Hare on Day 1, I was surprise to find one in the same field, I felt rather lucky 🙂

30 Days Wild 2017 – Days 1 – 5

Posted on by

This year I want to blog about 30 Days Wild more regularly. I’m planning to post a blog every 5 days, I will do my best to keep to the schedule but it might change and adapt as we move through the month. I take my hat off to the amazing bloggers that manage to post everyday. I am Tweeting everyday so if you want to follow along there, as well, you can find me @_HannahBaker  

Day 1 – ‘Spot a wild mammal’ – I decided to go out and look for rabbits to photograph. I drove down the farmers tracks along side my patch, so I could cover a bit of ground. I did find a couple of rabbits but they were out in the open on the track itself. I walked towards them but they were very skittish and ran off very quickly. I went to another nearby field where out of the corner of my eye I thought I saw a Pheasant, but reversed to have a better look. I was so please to see a Brown Hare. It was far enough away that I could get out of the car and get a little closer. It was sat eating either crop or actually I think it was eating the grass growing along the edge of the crop. It didn’t seem bothered by me so I took a few photos and watched it for a while. I drove further down the track and disturbed another Hare that darted into the crop but then came back out. I again was far enough away to be able to get out of the car but as it was closer this time I was very weary not to spook it. I moved extremely slowly round the car.  Again it didn’t seem to mind me being there. I didn’t want to disturb it too much so took a few photographs and moved on. I hope to go back another day to see if they are there regularly. 

Day 2 – 30 Days Wild was a complete surprise. I was driving to work when a bird caught my eye. It wasn’t obvious to me what it was so I pulled over to look properly, it took me a few seconds to realise it was indeed a Barn Owl. I sat watching it and only when it was flying away did i think to grab my phone to take a photo. I so wish I had had my camera with me!

Day 3 – Today I decided to ‘Read a wild book’.  Meadowland by John Lewis-Stempel has been on the book shelf for a little while now, a present from my Mum.  Today it was calling to me and I’m glad it did.  I am two chapters in and am finding it a very interesting read.  I was excited to learn about Tithe Maps which were drawn up between 1836 and 1852 and they are a great source of information if you are interested in field names.  I wonder if ‘my patch’ has a name other than being referred to as ‘the field’?

Day 4 – We put a TrailCam out the in garden every few days to check on the night time garden visitors.  We regularly see two to three Hedgehogs, a Mouse and we think we have two different Foxes that visit (one seems bigger than the other).  Last night we had two Hedgehogs, a Fox and a Mouse.  Generally the Mouse is just seen as two little eyes shining out of the flower border; so far the neighbourhood cats have been unsuccessful at catching it thankfully. The Hedgehog and Fox seem happy to feed together although the Fox did seem a little jumpy and moved away from the Hedgehog to start with.  

Day 5 – All it has done today is rain! The garden however is now covered in Slugs and Snails.  We never put down any repellent because of the Hedgehogs, we let them tidy up the garden; they will have a good meal tonight 🙂